User talk:Rmg

Welcome

Potts Trust [1 January 2016]

Hi Rhian, I have just noticed that you have made some entries of benefactors of the Potts Trust. Have you found any other related documents other than the ones I have posted on Ancestry? If so I would be glad to hear about them. By the way are you descended from a Potts Trust benefactor and if you are can you let me know how you descend? Regards

Phil Jackson

philjackson24@yahoo.com

P.S. Lindsay, Jamieson and Haldane--PHJ 21:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Adding Wonford, Exeter [27 January 2016]

Hi

Usually WR doesn't add areas of cities to the city itself unless the area can be traced through from being a separate place to being a part of the city as the city grows outwards. This doesn't seem to be the case with Wonford. Wikipedia infers that it is more of a neighbourhood than a one-time suburb. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't list any neighbourhoods of Exeter in its main article about the city. Other 20th century gazetteers for the UK are not so easy to find online.

There are so many places in England in WR as it is that I've been trying to reduce the number rather than adding to them. After all, the reason for having a database of places is to allow users to investigate other people's ancestors who have lived in a general area.

There are two possible ways to bring Wonford into your information. (1) Mention it in the "event" description field as part or all of a street address with Exeter in the "event" location field. (2) Add Wonford, Devon, England to the place database and then redirect it to Exeter, Devon, England. Actually, there's no harm in doing both.

I didn't realize you had such a close relationship with England and Wales until I read your user page.

Regards, Pat --Goldenoldie 14:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Glad you understood my reasoning. Liverpool, Manchester and London are a bit different because they are all now metropolitan boroughs and made up of numerous parts. Toxteth is in as Toxteth Park.

Do have a look at the Merseyside page and however much of its "tree" as you care to investigate. I've never been to Liverpool so it's unknown to me except on maps and news reports. I worked hard at Wirral District because I was doing Cheshire, but the rest may not have the same quality. I was happier doing Greater Manchester and I was able to copy some very good maps and work with them. I started on London, but the closer I got to the centre the less I felt I knew, so I stopped.

I spent my first 25 years in Toronto and that's where I left most of my own genealogy, particularly my father's side. Mom's parents emigrated from Scotland in 1903 and their families have been traceable back to 1700 at the earliest, but one line gets lost when Glasgow exploded in size in the 1840s. Both sides seem to specialize in one- and two-syllable common surnames (Brown comes in 4 times!). Since coming to this side of the pond I have lived in London, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire--we've been in the same house for 38 years and the same village since 1969!

Just a point--if you happen to be using a church parish anywhere in England where there are two or more big church parishes (particularly ones that were also used for civil registration), describe them with the name of the town first followed by the name of the church (e.g. Chester St. Oswald and Chester St. Mary on the Hill). This way all the parts of one town stay together in a list.

/cheers, Pat --Goldenoldie 17:06, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Toxteth [12 February 2016]

Hi Adding Toxteth to Liverpool duplicated it. Besides, Toxteth is not the only locality within Liverpool. I have redirected your entry to Toxteth Park which is already a page in WR. You may disagree. Right now it is too late to think further (11pm). /cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 23:34, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Locust Hill [15 February 2016]

Hi What did you do with Locust Hill? I can't follow through the computer-written journal steps.

On Friday I was in the middle of cleaning up Cheadle when temptation took me off to do my own family for 48 hours. Cheadle was confusing, it changed its name too many times and Wikipedia was only looking at the present situation. I hope I have given an honest account of it.

My own family changed their surname in the middle to late 18th century. The children are all baptized LIE, and those who stayed in the Yorkshire Dales (Bedale) are traceable as LYE by the time the children are producing another generation. However, my ggg gfr moved east to the Malton area and switched to LILE, LISLE and LYLE. The latter was what his sons took to Canada around 1830 and has been maintained since. But it is very hard to trace in FamilySearch or FindMyPast with the limited amount of information in the records of the time. Spelling all depends on the whims of the vicar or curate.

Life is made of interruptions. Here comes another outside-genealogy one. I'll be back to find out what happened to Locust Hill later. /cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 08:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Rhian

Following your answer.

Usually when I "speedy delete" a place, it is as a last resort. I usually put a reason in my explanation. Most duplicated places can be redirected to another, but sometimes two places have been created for what it actually only one locality and they have to be pared down to one. Then I have to copy and paste and throw out one of the two (redirecting only the name to the other one).

I found Locust Hill under Tilston (in the south of Cheshire). It should have been Lowcross Hill in that location. That's how it got into speedy delete. Now, where should it be?

Sorry, if I am asking twice. My memory isn't operating at 100% this morning.

/cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 09:29, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Have a peak at the explanation in each case before you kill them. The one I am most dissatisfied about is Kincardine Township in Bruce County, Ontario, so don't touch it, please. I think someone else did this. Since 1970 Ontario has gone through the same "Let's change the organization of the province" process as the UK, but it didn't make rules at the top for the local admins to put into place. Instead, they let local democracy loose and every county is different. It was great fun (ha ha).

/cheers Pat

GENUKI [15 February 2016]

This is my "bible" in Cheshire. It can be completely lacking in some counties (some haven't been updated in the 21st century), but some counties are very well put together. Wikipedia has a bad habit of believing the world started in 1974--and our templates don't always point to the WR database, but use the Wp one.

/cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 18:48, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Church Shocklach. Thank you [22 February 2016]

The Category:Church-Shocklach has now been removed. I am trying to consistently remove hyphens from places, but work I have done previously sometimes gets in the way. In the case of categories, I have to get both possibilities on separate screens and then cut and paste. If I am interrupted it can be confusing. --Goldenoldie 11:58, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Kincardine [23 February 2016]

Hi Rhiann
I hope I've got your name right. I don't have it in front of me while I write.

Kincardine is a difficult one that I discovered in passing a few weeks ago. I did the whole of southern Ontario 2-3 years ago and thought it was done and dusted then. Historically Kincardine was a village in a township named Kincardine (standard practice in Ontario pre-1970 and in many other places). Since 1970 all but one of the counties has been reorganized and the reorganization has taken many different forms. Bruce County re-divided itself into a smaller number of larger townships and pulled their towns and villages into the first tier of government (second tier being the county). As a result [[Place:Kincardine Town, Bruce, Ontario, Canada|Kincardine Town]], [[Place:Kincardine (township), Bruce, Ontario, Canada|Kincardine (township)]] and [[Place:Kincardine (municipality), Bruce, Ontario, Canada|Kincardine (municipality)]] all exist and all have pages in WR.

You say the township one is blank and in speedy delete. A month or two back I was chasing around some person in our database who had emigrated there and I found that Kincardine Town and Kincardine Township had been combined. Today the town may have expanded to that degree, but it wasn't so in the horse and cart era of 1900. To break them apart again was going to take more time than I had at that particular moment. I guess I got started but didn't finish.

I have found that in some UK counties, parishes close to towns are often divided Urban and Rural depending on whether they were part of the Urban District of 1894-1974 or the Rural District of the same timespan. Oh, that that idea had got to Ontario.

I'll see if I can give Kincardine a quick sort out. But I keep wondering if someone scuppered my original somewhere along the line.

/cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 09:51, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

PayPal [28 February 2016]

Hi Rhiann

I have a Paypal account but I would love to dispose of it. (Facebook and Twitter fall into the same category for me.) It would appear from the icons on the WR Donate page that one can pay with a Visa card, but that clicks to Paypal. The form wants my address and phone number and won't proceed without them; a Visa payment form would not require them--just the card details are sufficient. It's a security issue.

/cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 14:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Place in red: an oopsie? [7 March 2016]

Take a look at [[Family:John Kirton and Alice Burton (1)]]. The marriage place does not exist in the A Vision of Britain through Time database. I have a feeling the contributor misread his/her sources.

/cheers, Pat --Goldenoldie 09:32, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Family:John Kirton and Alice Burton (1) [7 March 2016]

Glad you got the smile. Trace them only if you want to. I just spied them when looking at who lived in Burghfield through What links here. They go on for a few generations, ending up in Barbados.

One World Tree has a poor reputation amongst many Americans on WeRelate. This is one example.

/cheers, Pat--Goldenoldie 10:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Sharing a laugh with someone on WeRelate is a rare but enjoyable event, pariticularly when one's own family isn't "into" genealogy.

I've been working on Berkshire for the past week or so (second time of dipping toe in the water). Some Wikipedia authors don't realize that some of their readers would like to follow history from, say, the 18th century up to the 20th, through the big reorganization of 1974 to the present. (Being in the Domesday Book gets preference!) A civil parish now is not necessarily the same civil parish it was before 1974. When did it change? Wp is not telling and neither are the local authorities. Each one could have a permanent tab on their website giving a short history of its administration (just a diversion from the dustbin schedule and complaints about potholes). I am going to have to write to the Berkshire FHS to ask about the 20th century changes that took place in the civil parishes between Reading and the Hampshire border.

After all, 1974 was a generation and a half ago. Rant complete.

/cheers, Pat--Goldenoldie 11:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

...And I felt embarrassed to tell you I was interrupted to pay the chimney sweep and then help my son clean out two high kitchen shelves, removing all the foodstuffs so old that the EU considers them unsafe.

/cheers, Pat

[10 March 2016]

I've started to make corrections to people like this: Person:John Wiggins (18). It's friendly--if the contributor ever came back.

/cheers Pat--Goldenoldie 09:30, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Nice idea, I added a few sources as well, the census entries confirm the place, Rhian 10:10, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Kirkby-Ireleth [18 March 2016]

Hi

Where Lancashire gave its northen territory to Cumbria is where I got tired of doing it. Hence, the whole area around Kirkby-Ireleth will be either found in "unknown" or as simply "inhabited places".

Something I have adopted, but not got around to sharing with anyone, is redirecting hamlets and settlements back to the parish in which they are located. When they are mentioned in text they are in italics. Then I go through the "redirect" operation for each one pointing it to the parish name.

Dallan has now added to the software so that this list of hamlets is found under Alt Names with the comment "|from redirect" which I change to "hamlet in parish" or "alternate spelling" or whatever. Each one of these hamlets is then automatically redirected to the parish which is where all the sources would be found anyway.

I just put a tidy-up job into [werelate-administrators]. Let's see if someone else will take it up.

--Goldenoldie 10:40, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Family Riekele Hoeksma en Klaaske de haan [24 March 2016]

Hallo Rmg ?

I see that you "remade" this family, but I do not know why. What was wrong with this family? Regards from--Beatrijs 23:28, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

re Riekele en Klaaske de Haan [26 March 2016]

Thanks for the explanation about the merge, Rhian. (I don't know how to reply to your comment) Regards from--Beatrijs 05:33, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Norton Radstock and other things [27 March 2016]

Hi Rhiann

I thought you were away for the weekend, and here you are fixing Norton Radstock. Last night I had found contrasting sources, read what Wikipedia had to say, then went to bed.

I am coping with husband and son with foul colds, a daughter who doesn't get up in the mornings, and rotten weather that has just decided to add a thunderstorm to the mix. (Yes, I have a sore throat.)

Somerset was the very first English county I tackled and I have learned a lot since, so it's time to improve its presentation. I was working on Gloucestershire and was doing fine until I reached Bristol. Large towns and their ecclesiastical parishes always confuse me. And Bristol has parts in Somerset and parts in Gloucs, headed up the county of Avon for 22 years, then proceeded to be a unitary authority with land on both sides of the river. I would like to name this last mutation Bristol, England, born 1996. In times past someone has decided that a whole lot of places should be in Bristol which should only be linked by "See also", but they refuse to disappear from the component parts list. And that's why I decided to do some simple work on Somerset.

Thunderstorm has been replaced by soggy blue sky. Wish my brain had.

/cheers Pat --Goldenoldie 10:23, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

New Gedcom 3600 pages [15 April 2016]

I appreciate the 'Heads Up'. After all the cleanup work a number of us have done, that sounds like a potential disaster ! I'll have to "pick your brain" after I confirm a suspected Welsh line on the paternal side (and of course it includes married-intos. Price & Davies) Regards..Neal--SkippyG 15:12, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Leading zero on pre-1000 dates [24 May 2016]

I'm not aware of any formatting rules for dates before AD 1000. In general, we don't use leading zeros to improve specificity of dates (say, the 03 of January). On the other hand, I worked hundreds of pages out there, and concluded it was a good idea to be specific about years that old - 0999 instead of 999. So A LOT of pages have that form. If the wider WR world wants to cut them away in all cases - fine - but I wouldn't want to thrash page edits needlessly on something like this...

But that said - there's so much clean up that still needs to be done on ancient spaces - this is quibbling at best.

I just wanted you to know that I had a method (however minor) - so those leading zeros generally aren't chance elements of a GEDCOM upload...

Something that - I think - WOULD be very helpful - is if we started to associate people known to have a WP biography with their Wikidata id. This would make it a lot easier to align the WeRelate database with the Wikipedia universe. I'll add the form in some of the pages you've touched - so you can see whether it's something you want to add as the opportunity permits.

Best Regards...

-jrm--jrm03063 16:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The right answer would be to have the software format the dates per some convention every time a page is saved so this type of editing/clean up does not need to be done by hand. Obviously whatever the software used for a format would become the convention, whether certain letters are capitalized or not, whether leading zeroes are used, whether months are abbreviated or spelled out, and all the other discussions that go on. If a date was entered in some bizarre format where it could not be handled by software, it should be displayed in red or the save rejected (perhaps one for GEDCOMs one of interactive edits?). WeRelate:Suggestions/Format Date Field --Jrich 17:02, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Jim, I think the pages you are referring to were being edited to correct place name problems, while passing through these pages I tend to update other things that do not look right, for me leading 0's look wrong, but if you have been adding them then I will leave them unless some formatting rule is developed that says different.

Like I said - I added them in the limited circumstance of a year before 1000. It struck me that leaving a digit out of a 4 digit year is an easy mistake to make - but I can live with whatever the community comes up with. I also agree that normalizing date formats would be a good bot applications. --jrm03063 15:26, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Now that the overview committee is being restarted I will pass this onto them for guidelines.--Rhian 15:32, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Jrich, totally agree such minor edits could be automatic, to some extent it is, as you cannot save a page with yyyy/dd/mm or yyyy/mm/dd date format it would be possible to also strip leading 0's from days and to implement whatever rule for years, when a rule is decided on.

Hampshire queries [2 May 2016]

"I have a family group that were in Bartley, in 1901 it was listed under Copythorne in the census, a birth 2 years earlier just lists it as New Forest, other records give Eling parish. Should Bartley be added under one of the other places or added just in Hampshire with notes to see also the other places?"

I'll take a look at this one later. Just stuck my toe in the water with Hampshire yesterday, 'though I had done some organizing in Excel a month or two back. Let me get tables for hundreds and rural districts pasted into WR before I go looking at little places. (Spent half an hour this morning sorting out the mistakes that went with assuming Havant and Waterloo was a rural district when it was an urban one.)

Just another thought. Registration Districts. New Forest is definitely a registration district. Places attached to (or detached from) UKBMD sources should definitely be described as in a registration district because that's what's in the information. Reg Dists are in our place names in as many counties as I have worked with in the past six months. Completing them is a small project...I don't go past page 1 for any county.

Meanwhile, have you found your way through A Vision of Britain through Time? Once you get used to the organization of the data, there is a lot in it.

"I also found some inconsistencies with the Isle of Wight, it is sometimes shown as in Hampshire and sometimes just as in England and I am not sure how to fix it, it should always be a part of Hampshire I think, any advice would be appreciated."

I was of the same opinion on the Isle of Wight...until yesterday, when I read what Wikipedia had to say. Now I am wondering about what some other source would say, not that I have found another source. Maybe the FamilySearch wiki which is under reconstruction.

I had to give up on Glamorgan, at least momentarily. The links between the "communities" of the new "principal areas" and the pre-1974 civil parishes are so indistinct in all sources I have found (not many). Now I have written to Glamorgan Archives to see if they might have a "little list".

Back to registration districts and other lists. After months of waiting while watching the little circle go round and round the WR icon on my bookmark bar when I add a place which I am usually going to redirect immediately, I am now adding temporary lists of places to a convenient general page like a county one. These lists are sometimes prepared in Excel or just done on the spot if I find a civil parish has a whole lot of hamlets and/or a variety of spellings with and without hyphens. Each place in the list is then added with "Edit" rather that "adding a place". It may not be any faster, but at least I am doing something instead of waiting for the server to get its act together.

If there is a place in the "Also known as" box (other than a Domesday one) or if there is a longstanding redirect in the "what links here" box, they are also worked on again. Dallan added some tweaks to the software a few months ago so that redirects really redirect and the spelling variations find their way to the main page. The old ones have to be picked up manually.

Now back to Hampshire rural districts.

/cheers, Pat --Goldenoldie 09:19, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Further on the Isle of Wight problem. See Binsted and look at the warning notice. Binstead (near Ryde) is in red because it is first in Hampshire and then on the Isle of Wight. Should Hampshire or IOW get the priority?

--Goldenoldie 06:56, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, after dropping you the line above I went back and stared at Binsted and left it on the edit screen when I went down to have breakfast. Just came back, and it's revised now.

Looks like I better do an essay on how to use "A Vision of Britain". It took me months to figure it out.

Thanks for sorting that out [6 May 2016]

Thanks for spelling out for me what does and does not happen if one donates. It is good to know these things.

I've been in England all my life. I'm currently into some fun finding out about my Dad's evasive 'Auntie Violet': almost certainly she was named Elizabeth Maud, not Violet! No wonder I was having such difficulty. Her marriage certificate should arrive in the post any day now -- if it really is her! I can't wait to learn the truth - if I do!

My ancestors are mostly Irish.

I like your family tree, here on your User Talk page. I didn't know that was possible.

Cheers, --Helen-HWMT 12:14, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi and Thanks [12 May 2016]

Hi, and thank you for you helpful message. Just moving house, so can't really stop and write! --Helen-HWMT 22:54, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Administrators duties? [18 May 2016]

I don’t know if the anguish caused by embedded ads problem is ‘growing pains’ or ‘death throes’ but I hear Dallan say he did not realize we would be upset by embedded ads. How could he not foresee this?? And so now he has said ‘wait a few days’ to see what the income looks like. But it will be another two weeks before the month of advertising is up. And he has said he is not the one to be the administrator.

If WeRelate can survive the pain and disappointment for another two weeks, perhaps this will be a wake-up call for folks willing to be administrators to come together. I hope you are willing to give it another try. If Dallan had announced to the members that he was bringing you onboard to help administer, I sure didn’t see the msg and had no idea. But then, I’m not an admin – and I don’t have the skills to be one. I’m just a frustrated researcher trying to use WeRelate. About the only thing I can offer are ideas and comments now and then. [BTW, I don’t find ANY page that spells out just what admins do and the qualifications needed.]

So if you can get Dallan to be even more open about the finances, perhaps the folks will be more inclined to help keep this site not only alive but growing. Dallan’s apparent disinterest in keeping the site current and updated is a continuing disappointment. He has already put so very much into it and I guess now he feels like it should be able to survive and function on its own without more of his personal involvement. He has a right to be tired of it. But will he give you and others the authority and wherewithal to sustain it now and in the future??

A simple example of a situation that will turn newbies away: I donated on 4/25/16 – before the embedded ads even began to show. On 5/2/16 I wrote to Dallan on his talk page about the need to update the donation page. Not only has the page not been updated but as of today, 5/18/16, I’m still seeing ads – both embedded ads and ads on the side. Now I’m a die-hard I guess because I’m still here. But if a newbie had donated to get rid of ads and his donation DID NOT get rid of ads; he would feel tricked and angry. And he would probably tell others ‘what happened to him’ at WeRelate. Bad news travels faster than good news! Now, does any admin have the authority to do anything about that? Or is it all up to Dallan?? And the donation page itself still says that they will be working THIS SUMMER on updates that were done LAST SUMMER. Can you fix that page or does Dallan have to do it??

Janie--janiejac 18:25, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Opportunity to add lots of secondary sources - at least for some people... [26 May 2016]

I've been working on our transcription of Savage for some years now. The effort has a number of purposes...

• Make a better (and maintained) transcription of Savage available (There's another copy of the Kraft transcription of Savage out there - but it has not been maintained in many years - contains many scanning defects and other problems).

• Savage is a remarkable effort considering the time it was created and the means of doing so. But it's over 2000 pages long - so a lot of defects have become known since it was last updated. Centralizing information on known errors in Savage is an important effort in itself (our transcription currently marks 300 known/suspected errors).

• WR Person pages can create a superior reference to Savage - appearing as a <v>:

  string that links to the corresponding page of the transcript.

• I wanted to learn more about the challenges and opportunities of working with a large source transcription on WeRelate.

More optimistically - I hoped that a good transcription of Savage could help drive traffic and interest our way. Besides appearing in ordinary web searches - I took the liberty of editing the appropriate FamilySearch page to refer to our transcription. I also reached out to the online book project at the University of Pennsylvania, so our transcription is now mentioned there as well.

On the extreme end of optimism - I have ideas on how to automatically generate Source references for Person pages that correspond to annotation in Savage. The potential exists, to add source entries to over 20,000 WR Person pages. Would you be interested in knowing more about how that could be done?

--jrm03063 17:46, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

This sounds like a labour of love. I am interested in anything that improves data quality on WeRelate, even things outside my own interest and family lines.--Rhian 08:20, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll let you know when I have a proposal. --jrm03063 15:29, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Please email [30 May 2016]

Hi Rmg, Could you email me privately ? I have a concern that I don't want to express on a public page. Thanks. gardnerneal(at)live.com Neal--SkippyG 15:58, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Overview Committee participation [22 July 2016]

Noticed the recent burst of activity following your absence. Can you give us an update on your current standing with regard to the OC and why the discussion group has been deleted? Thank you. --cos1776 17:18, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Wondering why you deleted Person:Hildegard Rieder (1) [23 July 2016]

Deletion log

   02:27, 23 July 2016 Rmg (Talk | contribs) deleted "Person:Hildegard Rieder (1)"

Page history

   12:40, 22 July 2016 . . Jrich (Talk | contribs) (Propagate changes to Family:Benjamin Oelke and Hildegard Rieder (1))
   12:38, 22 July 2016 . . Jrich (Talk | contribs) (immigration)
   00:40, 13 April 2016 . . Rmg (Talk | contribs) (Propagate changes to Family:Unknown and Elisabeth Wronski (1))
   00:39, 13 April 2016 . . Rmg (Talk | contribs) (merged with Person:Hildegard Rieder (2) - review/undo)
   03:11, 26 January 2016 . . Rmg (Talk | contribs) (gedcom upload)